Matt Trowbridge: Bears have to stay on attack

The Bears are three or four plays away from being 4-0. And one play away from being 1-3.

Matt Trowbridge

The Bears are three or four plays away from being 4-0.

And one play away from being 1-3.

“It’s been a wild four games,” quarterback Kyle Orton said. “We have really played some good football for the majority of the time.

“We’ve got to find a way to play an entire game, but we sure are playing well for spurts.”

The Bears (2-2) can be NFC North champs if they remember why they play well in those spurts. And why they struggle at other times.

Here’s a hint: Look at how Chicago started Sunday’s 24-20 victory over Philadelphia.

“We came out, ran some no-huddle at them and tried to get them out of some (defensive) looks,” Orton said. “When we did huddle, we were very aggressive. We thought we could make some plays on them.”

The Bears – much like the Eagles – are good when they play aggressively. That means blitzing and faking the blitz on defense, forcing quarterbacks to throw quickly or guess what the defense is doing, and refusing to let teams run on fourth-and-1. And it means not being so predictable on offense.

Chicago has run on 62 percent of its first downs this season, but passed on its first three plays against the Eagles, scoring a quick touchdown. “We were rolling pretty good there for awhile,” Orton said.

Not for long. And the reason was obvious: The Bears stopped throwing. They ran on four of their next five first-down plays, gaining 3 yards. Total.

NFL teams strive to gain at least 4 yards on first down. The Bears reached 4 yards only once on 13 running tries Sunday, and that was on a 15-yard end around by Devin Hester.

But when they came out passing on three of their first four tries on first down, they gained 34, 6 and 6 yards.

Orton returned the favor in the final three minutes. Does anyone think Forte would have broken off that critical 10-yard run on third-and-4 if Orton hadn’t thrown a 4-yard pass from his own 3 on the previous play?

Run? Or pass? The Bears need to create that doubt almost every play. After all, this is Kyle Orton, Brandon Lloyd and Matt Forte throwing, catching and running, not Tom Brady, Randy Moss and LaDainian Tomlinson. Nor is the line stocked with All-Pros.

That’s how most people view the Bears’ offense. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Just as the defense doesn’t have to be defined by letting double-digit leads slip away in the fourth quarter, as it did in losses to Carolina and Tampa Bay.

“We played well those two games; we just didn’t finish things,” defensive end Alex Brown said.

“From what I hear, we played bad, and I don’t think so. We just didn’t finish the game. That’s not playing bad. We had points in those two games where we pretty much dominated those teams.”

Things will go wrong on occasion if Chicago gets too aggressive; the Bears might not have needed that goal-line stand if Orton hadn’t thrown a silly interception on second-and-7 from the Eagles’ 8-yard line. But mistakes aren’t fatal.

The Bears lost the turnover battled 4-2 to the Eagles but won the game and won the turnover battle 4-2 against Tampa Bay but lost.

No, the only thing fatal for the Bears is playing scared.

Matt Trowbridge can be reached at (815) 987-1383 or mtrowbridge@rrstar.com.